Community Defined Health: Thinking from the Inside Out

Abstract

Health-related decision making is traditionally based on institutional health indicators such as morbidity and mortality rates. Our approach, however, only tells a community's story. The Center for Health Professions in Saginaw, Michigan has developed a Community Defined Health process that captures the human capacity of caring, citizen engagement, and quality of relationships-in essence the intangibLe assets of a community. We assert intangibLe assets are as valid as institutionally defined health indicators.